I am a college student and have been struggling with depresson for years because my family is pretty dysfuntional and my parents are for the most part non-exhistant in my life. I have seen therapists, tried medication, tried to talk with friends, and tried to talk with family. No one really understands or has really been supportive. I can't control how my family treats each other, the college I go to (since I am about to graduate anyways), or the expectations that I feel society puts on me to be "perfect." On the exterior, I am pretty succesful at getting things done in life. I can control my actions, but not the actions of others. At this point, I am pretty much anti-social except for hanging out with my boyfriend because he is the only one who I trust, who won't decieve me or hurt me. How can I overcome depression when I feel like the antagonizing factors are out of my control?

Hi Sunshine, You have brought up some pretty good points in your post. Your getting ready to graduate college and feeling the stressors from that, it is a huge moment. I dont believe that society puts expectations on anyone to be "perfect", perhaps your family, friends, and chosen carrer path has but not society as a whole.

Now, your asking about "antagonizing factors" and my response would be to eliminate as many of those from your life that you can. Those friends that are not supportive of you and put more stress and pressure on you are not real friends in my opinion. The same goes goes with family members however, it is more difficult to dump family but you have limit the amount of contact you have with them and be aware that they are a stressor for you.

Depression is difficult to maintain on your own without medication and thearpy. Most of it does come down to dysfunctional home lives, parents, trauma of some sort or just plain chemical inbalance. Whatever the cause for it we do have to be aware of what triggers our symptoms and try to avoid them the best we can.

These are all really good points and I think you have a good perspective on the idea that you can only control what you do. The key here is in your desire. You may intellectually understand that you can't control others but perhaps emotionally you still want to be able to. The truth is that you do have the control and all the choices. The difficult part is identifying and making the choices that get you to where you want to be. Do you see a therapist? If not, try it, it will do you wonders and give you another place for support. We don't get to choose our families but we can choose how we react to them. Go for it.Stronglady4me